Air Canada Announces First Route to Africa & More European Destinations

Air Canada has announced new seasonal summer routes to Europe and it’s first destination in Africa! This comes just after Air Canada reiterated their intention to make Toronto (YYZ) a global hub.On to the new flights, these will operate on Air Canada Rouge which means lower costs and less amenities for passengers but the new routes open up some great destinations. For one, the most interesting route is Montreal (YUL) to Casablanca (CMN) at 4x weekly which is the first route to Africa for them. This route will see competition tho as Royal Air Maroc already serves Montreal but it should prove successful but Air Canada will be the only North American carrier to operate to Casablanca.

The other routes include Toronto (YYZ) to Glasgow (GLA) at 3x weekly, Air Transat already serves this as well. Toronto (YYZ) to Prague (PRG) at 3x weekly, currently no competitor. Toronto (YYZ) to Budapest at 3x weekly, currently no competitor. The final route is Toronto (YYZ) to Warsaw (WAW) at 3x weekly, which is already well served by Star Alliance partner LOT Polish. The route to Warsaw is interesting as it will be strictly Star Alliance serving the route and it looks like Air Canada wants to compete. I am curious on what kind of connections LOT will allow for passengers arriving into Warsaw on the Rouge flight if any…

While I don’t live in Canada, these are actually very exciting announcements as it opens up a lot of “2nd tier” European cities to a one stop route to many cities in the Midwest (and on miles too!). For example from Indianapolis (IND) I can now fly to Toronto and then onto Prague or Budapest. The only other one stop option would be a 1x weekly New York (JFK) to Prague on Delta.